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February 21, 2019

Thinking More About McDelivery

Jon Taffer states that delivery customers are different from restaurant customers and delivery does not cannibalize restaurant sales.Of course, his only source for such information would be from the restaurant companiesand the delivery providers. It may or may not be true.But consider this, other than the pizza companies restaurant delivery has never been aggressively marketed. Given the power of OPNAD, if McDelivery is on OPNAD, it's easy to think that much advertising will change customer behavior and will cannibalize in-store and drive-thru sales.Restaurant delivery has never seen anything like the clout of OPNAD.Will McDonald's Operators spend their advertising money to move profitable sales in therestaurants to unprofitable sales with McDelivery?Or has McDonald's Corp. already committed OPNAD $$$ in their deal with UberEats?.

11 comments:

After attending the BLS this week it is clear to me that Easterbrook does not understand the US business, and he is trying to force European style methods on us even though they are not likely to succeed in the US. (One size does NOT fit all). And Chris K has absolutely NO desire to compromise with operators on ANYTHING. He is trying to rule with an Iron Fist. Furthermore the band aid approach announced on McDelivery /UBER Economics will help very few operators,if any. MCD and UberEats still win while operators lose!

Our only hope is to 100% support the NOA as dues paying members, and insure that these tyrants do not do more harm than they already have. We are at a crossroads, we either hang TOGETHER, or HANG separately!

If McDonald's can force Opnad to advertise delivery as it is currently structured that tells owner/operators they need to dismantle OPNAD with new elections. If the Opnad memebers sell us out we kick them out.

I would not just randomly turn off my Uber Eats Ipad as that does not accomplish much other than piss off customers. What would be better is NOA to have a day of protest and all O/O's turn them off for 24hrs that would hit them where it hurts and garner a ton of media attention.

There may come a time when all O/O’s decide to close the stores for a day or two. The first time might be on a national holiday, publicly say we are giving our employees a day to enjoy the holiday- internally something entirely different.

Not because of delivery, because of ALL OF IT. I can sure withstand a day or two or three of paying my salaried managers and whatever other ancillary costs exist. McDonald’s Corp employees and more specifically leadership are the ones that are disproportionately affected by this. They take more on every single initiative, every single program, every single anything. The real power is on this end but this only works if everyone does it. I don’t think that there are enough collective cajones to pull this and there will be suckups who don’t participate for the look at me I’m a good guy BS politics.

If the characterization of CK is playing “hardball” and actively working against us he’s created a irreparable toxic environment that can only be won with bigger guns. We’ve got the biggest gun in the fight if we have the will.

If you check with your legal advisors they will probably tell you that purposely closing your stores for political purposes would be a breach of your franchise obligations, possibly a "material breach". And, if Operators want any sympathy from MCD shareholders, that's not the way to get attention. If the situation was the same today as it was last summer I'd support some kind of drastic action (but not closing stores). But there has been so much progress driven by Operator activism that it's stunning. With the formation of the NOA, an election at the NFLA, new leadership at OPNAD and every article published about McDonald's mentioning the plight of McDonald's USA Operators - this is no time to get suicidal..

Delivery has to be a balance, and profitability is an issue. However, so is QUALITY - and the chargebacks to restaurants because a product isn't meeting quality and accuracy - with no ability for the restaurant to challenge that model is simply dumb. Add the complexities of MCD negotiated fees, service charges, etc. - you don't have to be a math professor to realize that McDelivery is a GOLD MINE! Where MCD gets the top line SALES (GOLD) - leaving the operator with what's left - the loss (or the SHAFT)

Just like giving capital with $1 ANY SIZE DRINK - just "because". When the closest competitor small drink is $1.89 and their Large is over 2.89. Or $2 McCafe to build the supermarket sales - as the competition is selling for closer to $5

McDelivery worked in Asian markets due to population densities that far exceed even the largest US cities of NYC and LA. Completely different model here in the United States - even if these larger markets can get close to the demographics. Still, wasn't that a KROCISM - to Local Store Market (LSM) those sorts of ideas? How is what works in NYC good for a highway market in Kansas? Its not like Asia, where its good in HONG KONG because there isn't a McDonald's outside the limits to be impacted with the expectation of delivery. Unlike the USA, where restaurant saturation fills even some of the most remote travel areas in the country.

Looking to build sales - simplify the damn menu to speed service. Declare MFY dead, as the current production engine is dead in its ability to resurrect service times. How dumb is the system simplification focus, when it cant even ELIMINATE the McDouble - a made up sandwich designed to address food cost when the Double Cheese was removed from the $1 menu?

You just have to sit back and scratch your head at the low hanging fruit - but wasting $$$ and synergy on far fetched projects... or taking years to develop simple projects... like digital food safety.